flightgear on raspberri pi 4

[backspin]

Under ubuntu 20.10 flightgear installs on a raspberri pi 4 but doesn't run. Is it possible to get flightgear working on a pi 4, perhaps with vulkan drivers?

Thanks

[Hooray]

http://wiki.flightgear.org/Howto:Build_ ... berry_Pi_4

[wkitty42]

certainly not with vulcan... FG has no clue what vulcan is and won't know for several years, most likely...

[Hooray]

I think Scott is currently experimenting with building/running a heavily stripped-down subset of FlightGear to specifically target OpenGL Core profile, which could be considered one of the prerequisites to "eventually" target Vulkan, but as has been said, it's unlikely to be relevant/feature-complete for several years to come (I would not even be surprised if that means 3-5 years):

http://wiki.flightgear.org/OpenGL#Status
http://wiki.flightgear.org/Vulkan_Scene_Graph
http://wiki.flightgear.org/FlightGear_and_OpenGL_ES

Obviously, "VSG" is not event yet a thing - so there's that, too.
Other than that, there are quite a few legacy features that would need to be ported/updated.
For instance, the built-in GUI is in the process of being replaced by a Qt5/QQ2 runtime: http://wiki.flightgear.org/PUI

The time frame here really depends on how many people are interested/involved in making this happen obviously.
However, it is worth noting that the original FlightGear SSG/OSG migration was initiated back in 2006 and has never been fully completed, i.e. we are not even yet using OSG "fully". Thus, migrating to yet another scene graph implementation seems a little far fetched, especially given all the other "projects" that people pursue.

Also, the initiator of the OSG migration actually laid out a roadmap to encapsulate scene graph specific APIs to help pave the way for future migrations if the need arises, but his advice was basically ignored by other core developers at the time, so Vulkan support is certainly going to take some time and work.

[backspin]

Per the instructions at this link: https://launchpad.net/~saiarcot895/+arc ... flightgear

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:saiarcot895/flightgear
sudo apt-get update

I installed flightgear on a 8 Gig raspberri pi 4 running Ubuntu 20.10. It works - truly amazing! To see a flight simulator this sophisticated working on a raspberri pi, without even causing the fan to turn on, is quite a sight.

The flightgear version is 2020.3.1.

My frame rate is about 8-10 fps on the pi with this configuration. I thought switching to the 2D instrument view on the Cessna172p would improve frame rate, but the frame rate was unchanged.

Is there some setting I can change to improve frame rate? Also, is there a way to download additional aircraft? When I browse for other aircraft in File/Aircraft Center I don't see any other aircraft.

[wkitty42]

if you start the sim with "fgfs --launcher" you should be able to select different craft in there... don't try to use the in-sim craft center...
as for speeding up your FPS, be sure the AI are turned off and you might have to lower your render settings a little bit...

[Hooray]

Please see: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Howto:Build_ ... FlightGear

To further customize your setup, you'll want to use something like the minimal startup profile, and then increasingly re-add features one by one to tinker with different settings (aircraft, location, LOD ranges, visibility etc)

Basically, it's a good idea to start with a simple 3D model (ufo) and a location without any scenery at all (ocean/sea).
You can then play with different rendering settings and see what works and what doesn't.
With that knowledge you can try more complex locations/aircraft.

There are built-in tools to help you better understand FlightGear performance:

http://wiki.flightgear.org/OSG_on_screen_stats
http://wiki.flightgear.org/Howto:Use_the_system_monitor
http://wiki.flightgear.org/Built-in_Profiler